Scott Wilson

“Is that the last of them?” Dimitri asked his partner, Jess.

“Don’t
count on it,” she replied, placing a heavy silver frame in the back of the police cruiser. “You know how many
serial killers there are in this city. No matter how many we catch, there will always be more to replace them.”

Thudding
rocked the frame, almost knocking it from the secure track it rested in.

“Feisty
little bastard, isn’t she?” Jess said.

Dimitri
looked at the distorted and twisted face of the female they imprisoned in the time-dimensional holding cell, or TDH as commonly
called. The scowl on the woman’s face made her look more beast than human, and she’d fought that way when they
cornered her earlier.

“Has
anyone every escaped from a TDH before?” Dimitri said.

“In
the ten years I have been on the force, I’ve only ever heard of one escape. And that was when the frame was hanging
on the gallery wall back at the prison and the damned thing malfunctioned. The bastard smashed a dozen frames, killing the
prisoners and let a couple other maniacs out before being subdued.”

“I
heard some of the politicians were trying to pass a law so the victims or victims’ relatives could keep the THD for
murderers,” Dimitri said.

“Why
anyone would want to hang a living picture of a criminal on their own wall is beyond me,” said Jess.

“The
temptation to incinerate them would be too much for them. Can’t see the legislation being passed.”

Jess and
Dimitri secured the rear doors of the car and began their routine patrol again. Two hours into their shift and they had apprehended
six wanted criminals already. There was room for another four TDH’s before they would need to head back to headquarters
to retrieve fresh ones; much more efficient than the old days with one prisoner per paddy wagon.

Jess drove
the vehicle, keeping strictly to the designated route for the twelve hour shift. While she could leave the onboard computer
to navigate the preprogrammed path, she always enjoyed manually controlling the vehicle.

“Why
do you always drive, Jess?”

“I’m
just old school, she replied. “Never got used to the idea of a microchip in control of my life.”

“Yea
. . .” cried Dmitri, as a crash rang out from the back of the vehicle.

All of
the street lights shone bright, then exploded. The control panel on the vehicle went black and the car slowed to a halt, veering
into the window of a bakery before stopping completely.

“Get
your blaster ready!” Jess shouted, wiping blood from her brow.

Dmitri
unbuckled his seatbelt, then pulled his standard issue blaster from his belt holster. He did not see the razor-sharp edge
of a broken frame come down quickly, severing the hand holding his blaster.

“Aaargh!”
he screamed as blood spurted freely across the front windscreen of the squad car.

Jess pressed
the internal blast shield button, but the loss of power rendered it useless. Quickly, she pulled her blaster out and sprayed
wildly into the back of the vehicle. Flashes of the pulsing laser gave the two officers brief glimpses of the crazed criminal
holding some kind of electrical disruptor device in her teeth.

“You
bitch!” Jess cried, firing another three blasts into what remained of the back of the vehicle.

She felt
the cold, sharp chill of metal enter her back, and explode through her chest. She dropped the blaster and gasped for air as
the frame twisted inside her, piercing her lungs and severing her spinal cord.

Dmitri
grabbed his partner’s blaster with his remaining hand and fired a barrage of shots behind Jess’s chair. In the
flashes of light, he saw that all frames were smashed to pieces, giving this psycho a huge supply of swords to attack with.
In the light of the last blast, he saw that the criminal was no longer in the vehicle.

The last thing Dmitri heard was the slicing of his skull and the severing of his
brain as a long blade burst through the roof and into his skull.

Scott began dabbling
in writing after discovering the joys of sci-fi and fantasy at high school. In 2008, he joined the Australian Horror Writers
Association as a full financial member. Currently, he is an active member of the University of Texas Flash Fiction Writer,
Zoetrope Virtual Studio and FlashXER Writer Groups.

In
2009 he qualified to become a member of The Fictioneers writing group.

His
writing blog is listed on the Australian Horror & Dark Fiction webring, of which he is a member.

Over
50 of his fiction stories have been published in various publications, including Pure
Fiction, Dark Fire Fiction, Micro Horror,
A Long Short Story, Sonar4, The Shine Journal, The Cynic Online Magazine, Flashshot, Spec The Halls, The
Tiny Globule, Zoetrope, 52 Stitches,
6 Sentences, New Voices in Fiction Magazine,
Yellow Mama, Antipodean SF, The Short Humor Site, Twisted Dreams, Sinister Tales, Golden Visions, Flashes in the Dark and Static Movement, Wordslaw, Bards
and Sages, Well Told Tales, Twisted
Dreams and Night to Dawn magazines.

Two
of his stories are catalogued on the Anthology Builder Printing site for addition to personal anthologies. His short story,
?A Nice Bunch?, has been accepted for publishing in the 52 Stitches printed anthology in 2009.

Two
of his non-fiction articles have been published in the Wynnum Herald Newspaper
and a number of his letters to the editor have been published in the Courier Mail
Newspaper.

Scott
was the editor for The Central Plaza News with a readership of 5,000 subscribers
for 3 years.

His
interests include reading Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, Westerns, and Australian Literature. He is working on two novels
presently, a horror novel that he hopes will rival any Stephen King novel and a comedy fantasy in the style of Terry Pratchett.